Friday Morning Manna February 15, 2019
Nathaniel Fajardo email: [email protected]
Quotable Quote
“The Word is a power, a sword, in the hands of the human agent, but the Holy Spirit, in its vital power, is the efficiency to impress the mind.”
E.G. White, Sons & Daughters, p. 30.
The ‘Woe’ Side of the Seventh Trumpet
If you have been lackadaisically lumbering along on the treadmill of prophetic mediocrity, self-assured, Laodicean-like, that you are already settled and nestled in a safe space, just awaiting the amazing that will happen when Christ returns “any minute now,” please be warned: Though appearing to be a good read from many a religious literature, and easy listening sounds emanating from many pulpits in Christendom, this, in fact, is anything but the sure thing.
For, in the gospel plan with its majestic arc of truth, all its different elements are carefully and artfully detailed in the sanctuary doctrine—God’s provision and method of how sinners can, in their sinful mortal natures fully overcome as Christ overcame, and secure complete victory over temptation, the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Where rational choice is concerned nothing was ever left to chance, coincidence, conjecture, feelings, impressions, educated guesses and opinions of even scholars and experts.
Or even serendipity, as some appeal to nowadays.
In the gospel, there are no such things as truth “better understood by derivation than definition.” This, of course is not the same as the inductive method Christ employed when teaching in parables, and is underlying principle in acted parables and certain prophecies. Christ used the known and ordinary to reveal the unknown and the extraordinary.
Don’t get me wrong. All true, well-rounded education of the highest order and sublime nature possible in mortals, are certainly part of the “every good and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights.” James 1: 17.
Nebuchadnezzar, the first king of Babylon, the first of only four world empires that God allows to rule the world before His everlasting kingdom takes over and “covers the whole earth” (see on Daniel 2,) personally witnessed and testified to the opposite and opposing natures of the “wisdom of this world, which is foolishness to God” and the “wisdom that is from above that produces the fruit of righteousness.” 1 Cor. 3: 19; James 3: 17, 18
After personally examining them from head to foot to determine whether they had any physical weaknesses or deformities (because they refused the high honor of eating the meat served at the king’s table and to drink his personal wine, choosing instead a vegan diet for 10 days), and testing the intellectual wisdom of the youthful yet faithful Daniel and his three Hebrew fellows, he was totally amazed to find them not only fairer and healthier in appearance but also ten times wiser than all his vaunted Chaldean wisemen and astrologers–the most eminent scholars and greatest scientists of Babylonian world empire of that era.
So were the erudite and stately scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees and elders of the Jewish nation of Christ’s time—supposedly the cream of the crop of His very own people. Even at the tender age of twelve, they could not fathom the depth of wisdom enfolded in the questions Jesus asked regarding the very things they were supposed to be the guardians and ultimate expositors of–their very own religion and its practices–during the annual feast that brought Christ and His parents to the Temple (the earthly sanctuary). Their inability to answer the youthful Christ’s questions revealed their great ignorance that, until then, was cloaked by the “fig leaves” of their rounds of ceremonialism, “traditions of the elders,” and the teachings of men being passed off as doctrines of the Word! What about us today?
All the major agencies necessary for man’s salvation’s– past, present and future—is briefly summed up by the above quote (as well as dozens of others found in the Spirit of prophecy writings). I will repeat it with additions for emphasis:
“The Word [Christ, the Bible and the spirit of prophecy endowed upon and entrusted to the remnant people of the last days] is a power, a sword, in the hands of the human agent [the studious Christian soldier engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the evil “hosts of spiritual wickedness in high places,” Eph.6:12], but the third Person of the Godhead, in its vital power, is the efficiency to impress the mind.”
The uptick of modern-day prophets, “other Christs,” avatars, demigods, etc—their prophecies being extensions of their persona—are numbered among the very specific signs Jesus said would indicate the nearness of His return. But the unbroken succession of pivotprophets-messengers from the Old to the New, whose special calling with its specific office, mission, and work was not only to predict, warn, educate, and inform but toactivate each corresponding necessary reform in preparation for a specific fulfillment at that junction of the of the gospel of each dispensation. That succession has already ended.
It is the latter work of reform as preparation for certain prophesied events, that defines the distinction between prophets and aprophet-messengers. This may be the real difference between “minor” and “major prophets. After them follow the ground troops, called in Revelation aggelos, human angels engaged in mopping-up operations, as it were and finishing in the gospel work in great glory as described in Revelation 18.
All that mankind must know and understand of the gospel, by way of prophecy, has already been revealed. There is no more need for prophet-messengers. That’s why Jesus warned His followers to beware of all who claim to be prophets with their prophecies in His time, after and down through time, especially in the last days, arising after the appointed date of the end of time prophecy. Such are false prophets, false Christs, false teachers. Likewise, prophecy also revealed when this succession would end: in the short period surrounding the year 1844, the terminus of the 2300-day prophecy of Daniel 8: 14–the longest time prophecy of the Bible.
So that now, prophecy per se, unless it is Bible prophecy, properly interpreted and understood by the judicious use of the specific means, methods, and agencies provided by heaven, such prophecies are in fact one of the most alluring and extremely efficient stratagems of deception among his countless schemes. The prophets sounded this warning repeatedly, relay-style, down through the centuries; in fact, redundantly–for our salvation. Do we care enough to take heed?
The Pre-advent Judgment in the Finishing of the Mystery of God during the Seventh Trumpet Reveals a Perishing World not a Fluorishing World
The last three of the seven trumpets are “overshadowed with a cloud of “woe, as set forth in the following verses: “And I beheld, and hear an angel flying in in the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to all inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of three angels, which are yet to sound” [after the first four trumpets].” Rev.__: 13. This angel is not one of the series of the seven trumpet angels, but simply another heavenly messenger, who announces that the three remaining trumpets are woe trumpets, because of the terrible events to take place under their sounding. Thus, the fifth trumpet, is the first woe; the sixth trumpet, the second woe; and the seventh, the last one in the series of seven trumpets, is the third woe.”
We previously looked at the fifth, sixth and part of the seventh trumpet, the latter focusing on some its several wonderful mysteriously withheld, but then gradually demystified by a succession of prophetic fulfillments, then more fully in these last days. Two of these are the incarnation of Christ, and “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” etc. How these were even possible at all prompted even the angels to eagerly inquire into them. These are delightful, not woeful things.
But the other half of the seventh trumpet is equally important as the other yet much, much more solemn and awesome–both for those who seek salvation by God’s way which Abel did, and those who stubbornly seek it by their own way, as Cain did. Cain chose his own way to worship. Cain’s antitypes are those who stubbornly choose their own day of worship instead of the only day that the Creator rested from His work, set apart, blessed, sanctified and gave to mankind in the fourth commandment.
We have God’s assurance that every single individual born on this earth will be judged mercifully and justly– for “the Lord God is merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.” Exo. 34: 7.
Uriah Smith says, pp. 220-221:
“The Solemn Judgment Hour.— We have seen (and this is what brings the solemnities of the judgment to our own door) that the long prophetic period which was to mark the beginning of this final work in the heavenly sanctuary, has met its termination. In 1844 the days ended. Since that time the final work for man’s salvation has been going forward. The work involves the examination of every man’s character, for it consists in the remission of the sins of those who shall be found worthy to have them remitted, and determines who among the dead shall be raised. It also decides among the living shall be changed at the coming of the Lord, and who of both dead and living shall be left to have their part in the fearful scenes of the second death. All can see that such a decision as this, must be rendered before the Lord appears. . . . To the careful attention of every student of prophecy we commend the subject of the sanctuary and its service. In the sanctuary is seen the ark of God’s testament, containing His holy law. This suggests a reform in our obedience to that great standard of morality. The opening of this heavenly temple, or the beginning of the service its second apartment, marks the commencement of the sounding of the seventh angel [of the seventh trumpet] (Rev. 11: 15, 19). The work performed therein is the foundation of the third angel’s message of Revelation 14,—the last message of mercy to a perishing world. This subject of the sanctuary renders harmonious and clear which are otherwise involved in impenetrable obscurity. It gives a definite idea of the position and work our great High Priest, and brings out the plan of salvation in its distinctive and beautiful features. It [also] reins us up, as no other subject does, to the realities of the Judgment, and shows the preparation we need to be able to stand in the coming day. It shows we are in the waiting time, and puts us upon our watch, for we do not know how soon the work will be finished, and our Lord appear. ‘Watch, lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping.’ Uriah Smith, Daniel and the Revelation, p. 221.
Christ is The Prophet and Messenger of the Covenant, the first and the last. The last in the line of succession of the human prophet-messengers, Ellen G. White, wrote:
“We are now living in the great [antitypical] day of atonement. In the typical service, while the high priest was making the [intercessory] atonement for Israel, all were required to afflict their souls by repentance of sin and humiliation before the Lord, lest they be cut off from among the people. In like manner, all who would have their names in the book of life, should now, in the few remaining days of their probation, afflict their souls before God by sorrow for sin [the cause, not its effects and death-wages] and true repentance. There must be deep, faithful searching of heart. The light, frivolous spirit indulged by so many professed Christians must be put away. There is earnest warfare before all who would subdue evil tendencies that strive for the mastery. The work of preparation is an individual work. We are not saved ion the groups. The purity and devotion of one will not offset the want of these qualities in another. Though all nations are to pass in judgment before God, yet He will examine the case of each individual with as close and searching scrutiny as if there was not another living being upon the earth. Everyone must be tested, and found ‘without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.’ Eph. 5: 27.”- Great Controversy, pp. 489. 490. (To be continued next week)